Spain and Belarus to meet again

Spain are widely anticipated to get the better of Belarus when the sides meet in Wednesday's first UEFA European Under-21 Championship semi-final in Viborg.

• Spain are seeking a third European title to add to their previous U21 triumphs in 1986 and 1998 while Belarus are in the semi-finals for the first time – after two group stage exits in 2004 and 2009.

• Luis Milla's team won Group B in impressive fashion while Belarus scraped into the last four, edging Iceland and Denmark in a three-way head-to-head calculation. Georgi Kondratyev's side had lost two of their three Group A matches.

Match background
• Belarus and Spain drew 1-1 in a friendly in Alcala de Henares on 28 March this year. Dmitri Rekish's 77th-minute strike cancelled out Daniel Parejo's goal for Spain ten minutes earlier.

• The lineups that night were:
Spain: David de Gea, Mikel San José, Álvaro Domínguez, Dídac Vilà (Raúl Baena 73), Martín Montoya (Alberto Botía 60), Andreu Fontás (Thiago Alcántara 46), Ander Herrera (Jordi Alba 73), Daniel Parejo (Jonathan Viera 84), Diego Capel, Bojan Krkić (Iker Muniain 46), Adrián López (Emilio Nsue 60).
Belarus: Aleksandr Gutor, Oleg Veretilo, Yegor Filipenko, Sergei Politevich, Denis Polyakov, Dmitri Baga (Sergei Matveychik 60), Mikhail Sivakov, Stanislav Dragun, Mikhail Gordeychuk (Vitali Gayduchik 89), Pavel Nekhaychik, Maksim Skavysh (Dmitri Rekish 60).

• Members from the two squads in Denmark met in an U19 qualifying round fixture on 4 October 2008. A Spain side coached by Milla and with David de Gea in goal beat a Belarus team featuring Dmitri Baga and captained by Sergei Politevich 4-0 in a mini-tournament hosted in Minsk. Both sides progressed to the elite round, with Spain making the final tournament.

• Belarus played Spain in their first final tournament game as an independent nation on 26 April 1994 at the European U16 Championship in the Republic of Ireland, winning 1-0 in Drogheda en route to the last eight.

• Exactly three months later the nations met again at the U18 finals in Spain. The hosts prevailed 4-1 with Fernando Morientes among their scorers, and the Spanish eventually finished third.

• As a player, Belarus coach Kondratyev appeared for the Soviet Union as a 56th-minute substitute in a 2-0 defeat in Spain in January 1986.

• Kondratyev was also in the FC Dinamo Minsk side that eliminated Real Sociedad de Fútbol on away goals in the second round of the 1987/88 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup – drawing 1-1 in Spain and 0-0 at home.

• Milla enjoyed two victories as a player on Danish soil. The first was FC Barcelona's 1-0 first-leg win at AGF Århus in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup quarter-finals in March 1989. The same stadium, albeit rebuilt, will host Saturday's final.

• The return was goalless and Barça went on to lift the trophy, Milla playing for an hour in the 2-0 final victory against UC Sampdoria at the Wankdorf Stadion in Berne, Switzerland.

• The second was alongside Denmark legend Michael Laudrup in Real Madrid CF's 3-2 win at Odense BK in the third round of the UEFA Cup in November 1994. He was an unused substitute in that game, as well as in the second leg – a 2-0 win for OB which secured a 4-3 aggregate triumph and one of the greatest results in European club football for a Danish club. The win was dubbed the Miracle in Madrid.

• Spain and Belarus have never met at senior international level but several of Kondratyev's squad have faced Spanish teams in UEFA club competition.

• Pavel Nekhaychik and Mikhail Sivakov appeared as substitutes for FC BATE Borisov in a 4-1 loss at Villarreal CF in the UEFA Cup first round in September 2007, with Baga on the bench. Yegor Filipenko played the full 90 minutes of BATE's 2-0 second-leg home defeat the following month, with Sivakov a substitute.

• Nekhaychik and Sivakov were subsequently in the BATE starting lineup for a 2-0 loss at Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League group stage in September 2008. Aleksandr Gutor and Maksim Skavysh watched from the bench, while all four players were substitutes for BATE's 1-0 home loss to Madrid that November.

• When Spain beat the USSR in the 1964 UEFA European Championship final there was one player from Belarus in the Soviet squad, Eduard Malofeev, but he was on the bench for the final.

• Squad members eligible to play in the 2011/13 UEFA European Under-21 Championship:
Spain – Thiago Alcántara, David de Gea, Bojan Krkić, Diego Mariño, Martín Montoya, Iker Muniain
Belarus – Dmitri Baga, Vladimir Khvaschinski, Sergei Politevich, Denis Polyakov

Spain news
• True to their passing style, Spain have recorded more possession in their games than any other of the semi-finalists – 59% against England, 66% against the Czech Republic and 64% against Ukraine.

• The Spanish have two players well placed in the race for the competition's adidas golden boot. With his goal against Ukraine on Sunday, Adrián López moved into the outright lead in the scoring chart with three goals, while Juan Mata scored twice and now stands as one of four players on that number.

• Spain's greater experience is a factor in their favour in this semi-final – 11 of the Spain squad have played in an international final to Belarus's none.

• César Azpilicueta pulled up in training on Monday with a thigh strain. Doctors assessed the injury but he is expected to be available against Belarus.

• Milla picked the same starting XI for the last two group games.

• A number of the Spanish players were visited by their families at their Silkeborg base after the defeat of Ukraine, including Iker Muniain – the only teenager in the Spain squad.

Belarus news
• Belarus are the first team since Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 to progress to the semi-finals with three points. Only three other sides have previously reached the knockout stage with a negative goal difference: Serbia and Montenegro in 2006 (-1), Portugal in 2004 (-1), Czech Republic in 2002 (-1).

• Belarus reserve goalkeeper Artem Gomelko returned to his club FC Lokomotiv Moskva on Sunday because of an injury to Lokomotiv's Anton Amelchenko, who is also Belarusian, and the suspension of first-choice custodian Guilherme.

• Politevich and Nikita Bukatkin are available again after serving suspensions against Switzerland, but Sergei Matveychik will miss the Spain semi-final after his dismissal in the final Group A game.

• On Sunday, the squad went to watch the England v Czech Republic match in Viborg, the venue for the Spain game.

• The players were impressed by the Czechs' late fightback and said their particular style of football would have probably made them trickier opponents than Spain.

• Filipenko's father is in Denmark and has attended all of Belarus's matches so far.

• Baga's elder brother Aleksei featured for the Belarus U21 team that qualified for the 2004  finals. He was the captain of a team that featured the likes of Aleksandr Hleb and Sergei Kornilenko; Aleksei's wife, Natalia Marchenko, is a basketball player and is currently representing Belarus at the European Championship in Poland.